They Cooked
by DryadSpeaks
Summary: Spinoff From Chapter 5 of "The Smile on Your Face" and Chapter 22 of "All My Dreams."  Quinn heads over to Artie's place to cook him dinner.  Full-blown Quartie.


When Artie invited Quinn over for the evening, she decided it was as good a time as any to introduce him to her cooking skills. She wasn't THAT skilled, but she made decent chicken, potatoes, and vegetables, and she figured that would be a safe bet. She knew that Artie had allergies, but she decided what she bought was a good choice. She was pretty sure she'd seen him eat all those things before...except Swiss chard.

Swiss chard held a special place in Quinn's heart. Her mother used to make it all the time because her father liked it so much. After she kicked him out, she stopped making it. Despite the fact that she had so much anger towards her father, she couldn't help smile whenever she saw the leafy vegetable. It reminded her of happier times with her family...of before she got pregnant, and before the family they had built fell apart.

As she was gathering a couple of things she thought she might need while she was cooking at Artie's, Quinn decided to grab a couple of movies from her shelf. She narrowed it down to about five, and then decided two would be plenty, so she picked _Young Frankenstein¸_ and _Robin Hood: Men in Tights_. She hadn't shared her love for the classic Mel Brooks films yet, but she hoped Artie would feel the same way...or at least that he wouldn't hate them.

She was slightly nervous as she approached the door. She had never cooked for someone in their own home before. She wanted to impress Artie, and she hoped that she was going about it in the right way.

Her nervousness evaporated when a smiling, slightly dishevelled Artie answered the door. How could she ever have thought that what she had planned was the wrong thing? He probably would have loved it equally as much if she'd shown up with nothing.

Once she was inside, Artie took the bag of groceries from her, and they went into the kitchen. Quinn started unpacking her bags, and when she got to the chard, she held it for a second before throwing it at Artie.

"Do you think you could please wash this and tear it up?" she asked.

Artie just stared at it.

"What is this? It looks like something that should be growing on Endor."

"It's Swiss chard. Haven't you ever had that before?"

He looked as though he was in deep though for a second, and then said, "No. I'm pretty sure I would remember if I'd ever eaten something that looked like this."

Quinn tried to stifle the grin that was about to spread across her face. Clearly she was going to need to widen the variety of vegetables that Artie was familiar with.

He took the bundle of greens over to the sink, and started washing the leaves. When he was finished, he tore them into uniformly-sized squares. He wasn't really sure if that's what she meant, but she looked busy, and he figured he should probably be able to handle such a simple task by himself, so he didn't say anything.

In the time it took Artie to get the chard ready, Quinn got the chicken ready and in the oven, the potatoes on the stove, and the carrots peeled and cut up. It probably would have taken her even less time than it had, because it was something that she had done frequently before, but she kept stopping to watch her boyfriend tear up the leaves. From what she could tell, he was making all the pieces the same size. At times it almost looked like his mind was measuring the pieces, and comparing them to all the others.

She thought for a moment that maybe in the future she should be more specific, but dismissed the thought quickly. If that was how Artie needed to do it, then that was just fine. She would probably just have washed off the leaves and torn them quickly, but if he wanted to be a bit OCD about it, then why not? It's not like she needed his help with the other stuff. She had actually wanted to do everything herself for him, but thought that he might be uncomfortable just sitting there watching her cook.

After dinner was ready, they sat down to eat. Artie made a bit of a show of pulling out Quinn's chair for her, and then situated himself across from her at the table.

"Quinn...this dinner is amazing. No one has ever cooked for me before...besides people I'm related to."

She smiled, and thanked him.

"It wouldn't have been half as good without that perfectly torn chard."

Artie smiled, slightly sheepishly.

"I didn't want to tell you I actually had no idea what you meant when you said to tear it up, but I figured that it would be nice if the pieces were all the same. Seeing it once it was cooked made me realize that I probably didn't need to be that meticulous about it."

She couldn't believe how cute he was.

After dinner, they headed into the living room, where Quinn produced the DVDs she'd brought.

Judging from Artie's reaction, she definitely made the right choice. They spent the next couple of minutes talking about their favourite Mel Brooks films, before settling on the couch together.

About halfway through the first movie, Artie moved his arm up behind her and wrapped it around her shoulders. He had been sitting kind of crookedly anyway, so maybe she'd just think he needed the extra support...or something.

Quinn, however, was all too familiar with that tactic. She knew what was going on, and she also knew that she wasn't going to do anything to stop it.

She moved closer to him, so that it wasn't quite as awkward, and laid her head on his shoulder.

Artie was pretty sure he'd died and gone to heaven. There he was, on his couch, with Quinn. He had her arm around her, and she was pretty much lying on him.

He wasn't really sure what to do next. Should he make some sort of move? Hold her hand? Say something? Say nothing? What?

Quinn, on the other hand, knew exactly what she was doing. After a couple of minutes, she slipped her hand into Artie's, which had been lying in his lap. She moved herself even closer to him, so that she was half lying on him, half leaning on him.

They sat there like that for a bit, watching the movie (or, at least, pretending to), before Quinn repositioned herself so that she was facing Artie. She inched her face closer to his, until their lips were almost touching.

Then she leaned in, and kissed him.

It was like fireworks. Artie wasn't sure how it happened...how they'd gone from sitting together watching a movie to her in his lap with her hands behind his head and her lips on his.

At that moment, Artie Abrams knew he was in love with Quinn Fabray, even if he couldn't admit it to anyone...including himself.

And Quinn knew she was in love with Artie. She had told herself that she needed to take things slowly, that that year was about her. When she looked into Artie's eyes, it was like everything melted away. He was all she saw. That was the first time she thought maybe they were meant to be.

Eventually, Artie found himself with his hands behind Quinn's back, while she sat facing him, hands behind his head, working her mouth over his neck. He was kind of pinned down, but he made his best efforts to respond to her advances.

Quinn could tell he was slightly shocked, and decided to use this to her advantage. Every so often, she'd look up into his beautiful, blue eyes, smile slightly, and get back to it. She wasn't sure where the whole thing was supposed to be going, but she knew eventually she would have to stop. It was way too soon for things to go to the next level, and she didn't know if either of them was ready for that.

She knew Artie probably wouldn't say no, even if he was uncomfortable, and that was the last thing she wanted. When it was the right time, she wanted it to be special for both of them.

After a bit, she pulled herself off him, giving him one last, lingering kiss, before announcing that she should probably get home soon.

**A/N: Story for Violet-Shadow...I hope it lived up to your expectations.**

**I know this is a wordy, wordy story, and probably could have been much shorter, but it's not...because I said so. And, since I'm the author, that's alright, right? I always struggle a bit with stories that are in the third person...I just can't write it as well as I can in the first. Soooo, consider these oneshots my practice at that! I'm terrible at describing things in my real life, and I'm pretty sure that contributes to my lack of skill describing things in stories.**

**Also, in my world, Brittany + Artie DID NOT HAPPEN. EVER.**

**Hope you enjoyed :) If anyone else has journal entries from either "All My Dreams" or "The Smile on Your Face" that you'd like to see an expansion of, let me know via message or review, and I'll see what I can do!**

**From the sound of things I'm going to be having a busy week, so I thought it best to get this out there today!**

**Obviously I don't own Glee or anything by Mel Brooks.**


End file.
